The Fence - Dick Lehr [57]
Ian Daley turned on his siren and lights. He saw the cars’ occupants looking around. “You know, one head would pop up, another head would pop up, and one would go down.” He pulled up behind the Lexus.
Daley wasn’t the only one who saw the gold-colored car. Dave Williams and Jimmy Burgio were approaching from the opposite direction. They’d made the right onto Seaver from Blue Hill Avenue and spotted the Lexus. Williams saw the Lexus’s lights were turned off and that Daley’s cruiser was behind it.
Williams thought he might be able to cut the Lexus off if he jumped the median. But he quickly decided not to—the concrete strip was eight inches or higher, and he’d more likely get hung up on it than make it over.
Instead, Williams shifted the cruiser into reverse and roared backward. Looking over his shoulder, he saw other cruisers, including a munie car. Williams had to slow down to navigate his way back to Blue Hill Avenue. The slow-down incensed the intensely competitive Burgio. When they almost collided with the munie car, he screamed out the window at two municipal officers, “Get out of my chase!”
Tiny turned off Seaver Street onto Blue Hill Avenue, heading in the direction of Mattapan. Ian Daley followed, making the right turn onto Blue Hill. Williams, seeing an opening, jumped in behind Daley. Other cruisers fell in behind the two lead cars. Burgio saw cruisers behind him “as far as I could see.”
Daley radioed in the new location—Blue Hill Avenue—a street so well-known it was like saying Broadway to a New Yorker. When they heard it, for example, Kenny Conley and Bobby Dwan erupted with the click of recognition. “Now we know where to go,” Kenny said. They’d been monitoring the chase feeling useless, but Kenny was now flooring the accelerator and hitting speeds of 90 mph as they raced up Columbia Road, which emptied onto Blue Hill Avenue at Franklin Park.
Richie Walker, meanwhile, listened to the progress of the chase and began thinking if it continued heading south in his direction, this might be something he’d want to join. Mike Cox and Craig Jones, for their part, turned onto Blue Hill knowing they were getting back on the right track. They saw no sign of the chase ahead of them, but headed down Blue Hill, playing catch-up.
Tiny drove down Blue Hill along the east side of Franklin Park, past the entrance to the zoo, where construction was scheduled to begin soon on a new exhibit to house a dozen African lions, marking the return of lions to the zoo after a twenty-five-year absence. Past the zoo at the first intersection, Tiny turned right onto American Legion Highway. The others bounced around inside. They were all rattled by the growing line of cruisers behind them. For his part, Smut decided he was going to have to direct their escape. Turning down American Legion Highway, he thought, was a bad move. Since it was straight and wide open, he figured no way they’d be able to outrun the police on it. What they needed to do was to get into the side streets.
Then they saw trouble—flashing lights up ahead, where police were hastily setting up in a roadblock. Tiny braked. Smut was yelling at him to turn around. Tiny crossed the grassy median dividing American Legion Highway and began driving back toward Blue Hill Avenue. Behind them, Ian Daley copied Tiny’s moves.
Farther back, Dave Williams watched the two cars slow down to execute the maneuver. He thought, “Okay, yeah, we got him.” He began driving across the grassy median too and told Burgio to get ready. “We’re going to ram this car.” They snapped on their seat belts. Burgio opened his window to eliminate the possibility of shattered glass flying all over them. They braced